A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
What we study and how we learn to talk about it is productive of our identities along mostly covert dimensions of power. How do scholars distinguish themselves from the mainstream critics?
Read moreThe application of fandom and its resources is not the same in all cultures, and African fans might not be recognized as legitimate fans. The point of this piece is to demonstrate that there is a unifying figure of American domination of mass culture.
Read moreA scholar argues that embracing an “overly confessional” approach to his academic writing is integral to the fidelity of his research.
Read moreThere has been a peculiar framing of fan practices as inherently admirable, or at least deserving of respect, throughout recent scholarship on fandom. Yet some fan practices are repugnant. The Gathering of the Juggalos is the scene of questionable fan practices contrary to the noble portrait of fandom elaborated by several scholars.
Read moreGiven how Aca-fandom has created its own canon and looks down its nose at certain cultural forms like sports broadcasting, we could use a little of Adorno’s elitism in the discipline today.
Read moreFans hold their objects of study to a higher standard. How can the critical study of any text succeed without the passionate and knowledgeable participation of the scholar?
Read moreA look at the specific pedagogical value of fandom as an activity and how it can be appropriated in a variety of educational contexts.
Read moreGunnels and Klink argue that fan studies parallels performance studies in discerning tensions between researcher and subject.
Read moreIs Aca-Fandom still a useful theoretical trope? Does it privilege some objects and remove the possibility of discussing others? Is aca-fandom merely a way to justify and privilege some tastes and thus reinforce them?
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